


Dedicado A Gus

by sebviathan



Category: Better Call Saul (TV), Breaking Bad
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Fluff but only in flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Missing Scene, Non-Chronological
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:22:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25060816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebviathan/pseuds/sebviathan
Summary: Gus Fring died, but that was no tragedy, for he was never truly alive.
Relationships: Max Arciniega/Gustavo Fring
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	Dedicado A Gus

"Is that the other hermano?"

Gustavo's initial wince was simply at Mike's pronunciation, but then he realized what Mike had gestured to, and what he meant. His instincts needed only a moment to catch up before he tilted his head charmingly and asked,

"Have you not seen the Los Pollos commercial?"

"Yeah, but it's bullshit," said Mike, not so charmingly. Though Gustavo had to appreciate that the man never minced words. "It's not even your voice narrating, and you could definitely have done it yourself if you wanted. I get it, though—the fake story, making up some old-fashioned uncles to give the notion of... I dunno, traditional values, nostalgia, whatever. It works for the business, I'm sure.

"But, this _is_ ," and Mike leaned over Gustavo's desk, reaching out across his keyboard and tapping gently on the picture frame on the other side of it, "...the two of you, isn't it? You and Max."

Then the man leaned back in his chair casually, nothing more than curiosity in his expression. Gustavo felt as though he was learning all over again, all at once, exactly how perceptive his most trusted employee was.

He tightened the polite fold of his hands.

"You learned his name from the memorial, I take it?"

Mike nodded vaguely. "And from the UNM scholarship."

Gustavo allowed a few moments of silence, during which he simply breathed. There was really no point in lying, he decided—and more importantly, did he even want to?

Smiling abruptly, he took the picture frame in hand and stared down at it. It became easy almost too quickly to forget that he wasn't alone in his office. He held onto it anyway.

"...Yes, Maximino and I founded the restaurant together," he told him. "The first was in 1987, in Mexico. Max was the chef. I was frankly quite lucky to have picked up just enough skill in time to carry on the business after he..."

Gustavo's eyes began to glaze over, but he pulled himself back into it. He'd been briefly caught up in the thrill of being honest about something that he could not remember the last time he had _any_ opportunity to so much as mention offhandedly—and then his self-preservation instinct and his grief had fought back. And now he was calm again. He doubted that he needed to finish his last sentence.

He moved to set the frame back down, only for Mike to reach out again.

"May I?"

"Oh—certainly." Gustavo handed it to him instead.

He watched Mike take it in both of his hands as though it were something obviously fragile or precious, and then seem to study it. He could be almost certain that he saw some kind of fond smile in there.

"Hm." Mike pursed his lips. "You don't look like brothers to me."

For just the slightest fraction of a second, his chest felt white-hot—but Mike's words ceased to remind him of Hector's as quickly as they started. Don Eladio's pool flashed in his eyes like a single frame of motion before being replaced by Mike's hard but gentle gaze.

And Gustavo remembered how they had already established the motivations that they had in common.

Part of him wanted to continue to let forth his long-repressed unfiltered honesty, meanwhile the part of him that knew that _he doesn't even need to_ had something suddenly more pressing to get out of the way:

"You know what, Michael, while we're on the subject—" He set the frame down, directly between them this time, and folded his hands together again and sighed. "I can only think now is as good a time as any to ask... In the event of my untimely death, there are a few things I would like you to do for me."

***

Gustavo has crafted his life so that Max is present in every waking second.

He is in every Los Pollos Hermanos, first and foremost—in the logo that he himself designed, in the smells of the kitchen, in every single employee and customer... the name is really the least of it. They share his office, too. They share his seat during every company meeting. They share a microphone during every interview and news spot. Even if no one else knows it, he's there.

Later, he's in every step he makes in the meth business. Every square inch of the lab. Every pound of meth, vacuum-sealed and hidden away in a bucket of sauce. He's in Gale Boetticher himself, no doubt. The very same passion and genius and kindness is there. He surely watches this work through Gale's eyes with pride.

Gustavo allows very little of his own pride, meanwhile, to infiltrate what he accomplishes. As far as he's concerned, his wealth is not his own. He lives in mere relative comfort while nearly every last dollar he earns is for Max—to fund the business, or to fund the scholarship for students just like him, or to give away to the community. It's the least he can do.

If there is one piece of his life that is truly for himself alone, it is... ironically, Max's memorial.

He would never have set off on this whole calculated plan if he believed that Max wouldn't approve. Kind-hearted as he was, his lover was not _soft_. He never took any mistreatment lying down. It took years together for the man to learn to let his anger and righteousness stew until most convenient. There is no doubt that he would go to similar lengths if Gustavo was the one who needed avenging.

But when he stands there at the edge of the fountain, allowing the trickling water to take him back to Don Eladio's pool, allowing that precise, excruciating rage and grief to overtake him... Max comes to him.

He'll come to him more tangibly than he's ever done otherwise. He'll look just like he did in his final moments—his face paled, with desperate, red-rimmed eyes. Beautiful nonetheless.

He'll cup either side of Gustavo's face in his hands, and he'll say,

" _Please, my love, you are putting yourself through so much pain. This is pure torture, Gustavo! I know that you feel like it, but what happened to me wasn't your fault. Please. You need to stop hurting yourself. Stop it now."_

Max's hands are so warm, his eyes so pleading, but it does nothing to the scene that Gustavo relives. Every single time, the gunshot still rings out. His arms are still wrenched back as he struggles against them, feeling more like an animal by the second. There is still a boot on his neck while his cheek is pressed into the warm concrete. The dripping—of the fountain—still quickly becomes all that he can hear.

 _It can never stop,_ his present self will think, distantly, from some place locked deep inside his mind. _I'm so sorry, Max, but you know I need this in order to go on. It won't stop until I do._

Max's pain will consume him even more fiercely than his own, then. He always did hate nothing more than to see Gustavo facilitate his own suffering. It's an endless cycle of exactly that, now.

Until something pulls him out of it. Usually the shout of a child, or the church bell, or the rumbling of a truck engine, or a chicken pecking at his feet—any sign of life will do. That's why this compound is here, really.

Once sober, Gustavo never makes any more apologies to Max, and certainly no more excuses. He doesn't say _but this memorial, but all these people who read your name every day, but the craftsmanship that went into this beautiful fountain, the most beautiful thing in this place by far in fact, but this symbol of our love, but my selflessness—_

He is acutely aware that he _could_ , but he doesn't. He knew before the construction of this place that it would mean nothing. None of what he's done here makes up for _anything_ , least of all where guilt is concerned.

It all serves a singular purpose. He's come to terms with the fact that he is no different.

Soon, as always, Gustavo will drive home feeling refreshed. And when he goes to sleep that night, he will keep to one side of the bed and leave the other empty.

**

Ideally Hector's suffering would have been prolonged as much as possible. He would live in that miserable, trapped state, haunted by his dead loved ones each and every day, for possibly several more years until an eventual third stroke killed him.

Gustavo would have continued to visit him regularly, of course. Amongst all his wealth and even the new expanse of his empire, the highlight of each week would have been the pure defeat that he would witness in Hector's eyes.

Surely the DEA would have never actually caught up. Only one agent suspected him capable of anything remotely like this, and he should have been relatively easy to take care of.

He still did have a plan for that possibility, though. He had a plan for everything.

*

" _Fring?_ Really? What kind of surname is that?"

Max is quickly distracted with continuing to examine all of their new paperwork, but Gustavo still feels he should answer rather than shrug it off. He _is_ quite proud of it, after all.

"Technically, it could be German," he begins, drawing Max's gaze up again.

"German? I thought we were going to Mexico—oh, are you trying to pass yourself off as Argentinian? Or related to Peter, or something?" Max frowns, then makes a point of looking him up and down, then laughs. "I think you ought to spend less time in the sun, then."

"Well—" Gustavo breathes a short laugh with him, just because the light in Max's eyes is so contagious. "The, uh... slight more _ease_ in associating with Peter's company is a plus, yes. It'll also make things much smoother with getting our entry visas into the U.S., I'm sure, if they get the idea I might be half-white—but those are mostly just convenient side-effects."

His neglect to mention the actual reason behind the new name hangs in the air for a few moments, and finally Max waves his hand impatiently and presses him:

"Alright, so what does 'Fring' mean, then?"

"Guess," Gustavo tells him. He leans into the table and smirks, knowing damn well that he's being infuriating. But he really does want him to guess.

Max cocks his head and sighs extra dramatically, then, as he resigns himself to it. After a good several seconds of nothing but desperate eye-rolls and obnoxious lip-trills, Gustavo decides to help him:

"You're thinking about it too hard. No part of your chemistry degree is going to help you, I promise. Just think about this, Max—in every good lie, there is a sliver of truth. Think about it. Gustavo. Luis. _Fring_."

A fraction of a second later, he sees the spark in Max's eyes, and the two of them raise their hands together at once, ready to count it off in near-perfect sync,

" _Fuentealba—Rebolledo—Illanez—Navarro—Godoy_ —"

" _Yes_!" Gustavo uselessly confirms, simply excited to be on the same page.

"It's perfect!" says Max before he can begin to brag about it himself. In their mutual excitement they've gotten very close, now, so he practically speaks right into Gustavo's cheek as he goes on, "My God, you clever son of a bitch—having no choice but to drop your name and getting to keep it anyway..."

"I owe it mostly to luck," he can't help but admit. "My family names just happen to be in a convenient order, really. If they weren't, I'd have had to choose something else."

Max seems to dwell on that for a long moment. He probably doesn't realize, but his face is growing warm enough for Gustavo to feel it. He only speaks again once Gustavo slides a curious hand up his back and frowns.

"...Do you suppose that you could have gotten away with changing it to 'Arciniega?'"

They both know that he couldn't have. But the thought of it alone pulls them closer in some kind of burning haste.

**

_You won't see him. You won't interact with him. Forget he exists._

If there was a single thing that ever came out of Walter White's mouth that he _should_ have listened to, it was that. He _already_ had absolutely no trust in junkies, thanks especially to his dealings with Tuco Salamanca.

But Pinkman wasn't like Tuco. Pinkman's relationship with drugs never made him violent—never hurt anyone around him at all, really. All the kid ever hurt of his own fault was himself, and then everything around him helped.

Gustavo was aware that he was included in that. The first useful thing he ever saw in Pinkman was an effective tool with which to right his mistake of hiring the ticking time-bomb that was Walter White. Almost everything he actually found likable about him, such as his oddly familiar moral compass, wasn't useful whatsoever. It put him in a painfully tight spot. He always supposed that at least, perhaps, his hand on Pinkman's shoulder would protect him from Walter's.

 _Spite_ was truly his main motivator, though, just like everything else. He never tried to deny that. He _had_ hoped to be a halfway decent mentor, but he also knew that that hope came from a desire to do better than the boy's previous one. The one who had forced Gustavo to live through yet another tragic, meaningless death. Who had practically taken Max from him a second time and used Jesse to do it.

Whom he still, unfortunately, needed to keep around to do his work.

 _A man provides,_ he'd taunted Walt. _And he does it when he's not appreciated, or respected, or even loved._

In hindsight, Gustavo should have recognized that his capacity for pure spite could also be his worst weakness.

*

"You fuck like you're trying to put a baby in me."

Max immediately nearly chokes on his own spit. It was fully expected even in Gustavo's current haze—he's very rarely so crass, even about their lovemaking. Sometimes he just likes to catch his lover off guard, though. Just to see his face.

"Sorry," Max breathes, grinning and shining with sweat. His chest heaves several times more as he leans his forehead against Gustavo's knee, then gently kisses the inside of his leg.

Slowly and deliberately, Gustavo wraps his legs tightly around Max's waist.

"Don't be."

They both very quickly forget that anything was said at all—and just about every other fact, for that matter.

Which is far easier now than it used to be. Before Max, Gustavo never had excuse nor want to get into such a state that thinking was not only impossible but antithetical to the task. That was truly the only thing that scared him about this part of their relationship—no religious hangups, no issues with body image or self-esteem, nothing. He just didn't want to lose control of himself.

Once he thought of it less as _losing_ control and more as simply entrusting Max with it, however, everything fell into place. Inexplicably, that's how he feels regardless of the position he's in. It's just how he feels about Max.

It's along that line of feeling that, very shortly after they finish and Max sinks into the bed beside him, Gustavo's thoughts get seamlessly right back on track.

The same feeling also has him somehow believing that Max _won't_ be caught off guard when he asks,

"Have you ever thought about having children?"

"...Damn, did I actually fuck you that stupid?" Max searches his face with some kind of awe, for a moment. Then he laughs. "You know I can't actually put a baby in you, right? Though I'm not opposed to trying—"

"No, I meant like... adopting," Gustavo says, calmer than he's beginning to feel.

It seems to take Max several seconds, during all of which they never look away from each other, to realize that he's serious. When he does, he pushes himself up onto one elbow.

"Hold on." His brow furrows, but his smile doesn't falter. " _You_... just last week, Gustavo, you signed off on my idea about getting into the methamphetamine business once I graduate. Now you want to be parents, too? I can't imagine our lives would even be _safe_ for a child."

"I don't—" Gustavo pushes himself up to match him, now. "I didn't mean immediately. Or anytime soon at all, really. Regardless, neither of us plan to actually _use_ the meth—we agreed that, didn't we? It will be no more than a product that we happen to manufacture. We won't be creating or selling it out of our own home, either. Once we leave Chile and become stable in that business, and once we have the money to live in comfort... I don't see why a child couldn't live a perfectly safe and happy life with the two of us. Especially considering what the _alternative_ is for an orphan..."

He doesn't know what's come over him. It only even occurs to Gustavo as he trails off that this is by far the most thought _he's_ even put into being a father. With his tendencies and his military lifestyle, it never so much as crossed his mind. It wasn't an option.

And now, all he can think of is how the first thing that Max commented on was the hypothetical child's safety.

"...You _have_ thought about it, though, haven't you?"

With that, Gustavo sits up all the way. Max stares up at him for a moment before following.

"Of course I have. I already raised myself and two sisters—I've practically been a father already." He looks both sad and a little proud of himself as he says that. "It's probably odd that I would want to do any more, but practically the instant I became free of it, I couldn't stop thinking of how much I wished that no child ever had to be their own parent like I did. And how if I just had a more stable life, I could be the exact figure than I once needed myself. I... never mentioned it before because I just didn't think you were the type to want that."

"I didn't either," Gustavo finds himself saying breathlessly. "Starting a family would have been insane. But I—"

"But things are different now," Max finishes for him. "Or... they will be soon."

"Things have been different every single day since I've met you, Maximino. I expect that to continue."

Max always seems to melt when Gustavo says his full name. Either that or go faster—depending on the context. In this one, he almost seems ready to cry.

Gustavo puts his right hand over Max's to pull him from that brink. Max immediately starts nodding.

"When we're stable, yes?"

He nods with him furiously. " _Yes_."

**

He'll do it with a gun.

It'll be a clean job, of course. Or as clean a job as a bullet through the skull can be. He'll be next to the brick wall so that the bullet will damage nothing else. There will be a tarp ready to catch him so that when his house is cleared out, the floor won't need to be replaced. His note will be sealed in a plastic bag and distinctly labelled. No sense in creating more gruesome work when he could prevent it with little effort.

The barrel will press against his left temple. The metal will be cold. He'll likely feel some spike of fear, but he'll pull the trigger anyway. Because his desire to get through this will simply be that strong.

He'll be wearing the same suit that he wore to Don Eladio's house twenty years ago. It will be as if Hector's bullet was always meant to hit him, too, but he managed to postpone it long enough to make sure that their end would not be pointless.

His lack of faith be damned, it will be no end at all. As far as he's ever been concerned, anyone else on this wretched earth might very well dissolve into nothingness the moment that their consciousness fades, but _not_ him. He'll be different.

He will see Max's face, finally free of suffering and having aged very gracefully. Max will punch him on the shoulder for taking so long and destroying so much along the way, but then he'll see Gustavo's tears and pull him into his chest. The tight squeeze of Max's arms around him will hurt, but he'll find it cathartic. A familiar, nostalgic smell will waft in. Max will say that he's just in time for the paila marina, and that they can talk about everything over dinner. _Thank you,_ they'll both say, still holding each other.

It will be, more than anything, like coming home after a very long day.

***

Gus Fring died, but that was no tragedy, for he was never truly alive.

The actual tragedy was that Mike had to refer to those particular instructions at all. They weren't difficult, but he was probably the only person who knew exactly how _robbed_ Fring was in the end, and he couldn't even make it right. To do so would have inevitably required incriminating himself—something that he was explicitly told not to do if he even wanted to.

Other than that, Mike had merely two steps to follow. It would have been three, but all of the Salamancas were already dead.

So his first trip, after he was in the clear over that laptop, was to the Lovelace Medical Center to claim the ashes. Having been in Fring's medical plans for years already, the urn was ready when he got there. There was one name listed as being allowed to take his remains. The I.D. that Fring gave him for it had been untouched in his wallet for the past four years.

Then it was down past the border. In the compound that Fring financed, there was a church, in a closet of which there was a large safe. Mike had memorized the combination to the lock easily after being told the story behind it: _090489_.

Anyone could have done this part. And really, someone younger and stronger and without a wound in their ribs should have done it. But Mike, ever the handyman, still took it upon himself to haul the contents of that safe outside and wheel them all the way to the fountain. He borrowed tools from the townsfolk and bored a hole in the ground for the spike on the bottom of the statue to fit into, and he funnelled Fring's ashes into a hole on top of the statue itself, and he finally drilled a second and third plaque underneath the first one.

Now, to make this memorial even more distinct from the rest of the place than it was before, two three-foot-tall black metallic roosters intertwined their necks and seemed to watch the water flow.

And on the topmost heart-shaped section of the fountain, three plaques read:

 **DEDICADO A MAX**  
**Y  
** **GUSTAVO FUENTEALBA-REBOLLEDO-ILLÁÑEZ-NAVARRO-GODOY-ARCINIEGA**

**Author's Note:**

> giancarlo esposito said himself that he imagines gus would have told mike everything, because mike was just about the only person he understood and saw as equal.
> 
> also just in case you didn't catch onto it, because i'm very proud of how i wrote this, the reason that the more chronologically recent events are in past-tense and the flashbacks are present is because the story is essentially from the POV of an already dead gustavo. the circumstances may have been tragic, but he's in a better place now, and his Better Place is represented by him living in those memories where max was actually with him. 
> 
> (i still would like to think that his specific hopes for the afterlife and reuniting with max would happen too, though.)
> 
> recommended listening: [X](https://bassiter2.tumblr.com/post/622473793751957505)


End file.
